In 2010, the bestselling atheist Richard Dawkins, in the On Faith section of the Washington Post, called the pope a leering old villain in a frock perfectly suited to the evil corrupt organization and child-raping institution that is the Catholic Church. Nobody seemed to mind very much.

Three years later, in a throwaway Tweet, Professor Dawkins observed that all the worlds Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though. This time round, the old provocateur managed to get a rise out of folks. Almost every London paper ran at least one story on the controversy. The Independents Owen Jones fumed, How dare you dress your bigotry up as atheism. You are now beyond an embarrassment. The best-selling author Caitlin Moran sneered, Its time someone turned Richard Dawkins off and then on again. Somethings gone weird. The Daily Telegraphs Tom Chivers beseeched him, Please be quiet, Richard Dawkins, Im begging.

Ten years back, even the United Nations Human Development Program was happy to sound off like an incendiary Dawkins Tweet: Its famous 2002 report blandly noted that more books are translated by Spain in a single year than have been translated into Arabic in the last thousand years.

2
posted on 09/07/2013 12:26:01 PM PDT
by Rummyfan
(Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)

A couple of books (by Ward-Perkins and Emmet Scott) propose that the decline of western Europe in the Middle Ages was not really due to the barbarian invasions; but to the end of trade in the Mediterranean,
which was a direct result of the Islamic conquest.

The books also note the decline of agriculture and urban life in the entire area from Anatolia to Spain, from, they assert, the same cause.

Indeed, they are, to one degree or another, members of the same secular liberal media elite as Professor Dawkins. Yet all felt that, unlike Dawkinss routine jeers at Christians, his Tweet had gone too far.

Some bizarre pathology in evidence here. The closest psychological phenomenon which I can compare it with would be the Stockholm Syndrome effect. The ROP is so far in the head of Leftys they hold them virtually captive. In response the poor saps have cultivated a demented, quasi affinity for their imagined masters. Weird stuff, and they're probably beyond redemption. We've all heard that leftists suffer from mental illness and here it is in the wild for all to view.

As are Two,3,4,5, 6,7,8,9, and zero. ‘Arabic’ was just the name given to this set of numerals when the West became aware of them through Arab traders on the old Silk Road. The numerals first appear in Sanskrit records from Northern India that pre-date the bible let alone the Koran. You can give credit to Muslims fro transmitting them if you like, but they did not invent them.

A couple of books (by Ward-Perkins and Emmet Scott) propose that the decline of western Europe in the Middle Ages was not really due to the barbarian invasions; but to the end of trade in the Mediterranean, which was a direct result of the Islamic conquest.

And Europe recovered once they developed sea routes the muslims didn't control back to Asia and discovered the new world.

The western liberal's stubborn deference to a barbaric religion - really a strict social structure - is puzzling but the always-insightful Mark Steyn seems to have figured it out in his the article in The National Post. Basically, atheist leftists seem to believe that, as Winston Churchill once defined an appeaser 'One who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last'. In a Muslim-dominated society, atheists, gays, feminists and other stalwarts of the left would be the very first to find themselves headless. So much for their alleged intellectual prowess.

It’s also true that what scholarship there was in the Muslim world during that time was only in the more “moderate” parts of the Muslim world, where reformist leaders encouraged tolerance and intellectual curiousity, despite the general Islamic prohibitions against those things.

that's so true, i wonder how many other things they've claimed to have invented...that were "borrowed" and how other things destroyed to satisfy their lust for destructionin the name of their "Moon god", ALLAH..and yes, the Christians did it, too.(may piss be upon him & his acolytes)

30
posted on 09/07/2013 1:49:43 PM PDT
by skinkinthegrass
(who'll take tomorrow,$pend it all today;who can take your income & tax it all away..0'Blowfly can :-)

Tell them that the Jews, a tiny people almost wiped out 70years ago, have amassed at least 170 nobel prizes to their 10!

That Sir...shall really bring to focus; the vast differences between the... Judaism/Oriental mindset & FR, is to deep desire to learn and to cultivatethe human spirit/intellect...and yes, i did contribute to FR last month. :-)

31
posted on 09/07/2013 2:04:03 PM PDT
by skinkinthegrass
(who'll take tomorrow,$pend it all today;who can take your income & tax it all away..0'Blowfly can :-)

Hogwash. The Egyptians and Romans had numerals long before Mohammerhead ever conned his perverted countrymen into believing he was some kind of prophet. And mathematics existed long before the Middle Ages anyway.

The numerals you're describing are ARABIC, but they're certainly not muslim.

Agreed. If you're a fan of Byzantine or Rococo art. The designs are incredibly intricate, I'll give them that. But look at some of the mosaics in the Taj Mahal, for example. The muslime weren't the only ones making really ornate filigree.

Oh, dear. I don’t have the money to go to the Taj Mahal! My husband has relatives in Sicily and we know the island fairly well. I believe it’s the Western part that has Islamic culture. The East is more Greek.

I’m not a fan of Dawkins’ writing, nor the late Christopher Hitchens for that matter, but they both should be defended for their writing as much as Mark Steyn, and Mark seems to agree. (Besides, Hitchens had a big plus going for him: He couldn’t stand the Royals.)

-——A couple of books (by Ward-Perkins and Emmet Scott) propose that the decline of western Europe in the Middle Ages was not really due to the barbarian invasions; but to the end of trade in the Mediterranean,
which was a direct result of the Islamic conquest.——

Amazing what you don’t learn in our education system....

50
posted on 09/07/2013 3:31:28 PM PDT
by Popman
(Liberal wars are about killing people for humanitarian reasons...)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.